We’re back this week with another topic suggested by Stirring Dragon, who asks — somewhat as a follow-up to our earlier discussion on the necessity of combat in RPGs — how did the turn-based & real-time mechanics of the various Ultimas make the games better, or possibly worse? Which is a really, really broad question, all things considered…but hopefully in our attempts to address it herein, we’ll open up the broader discsusion of both styles in RPGs in general.

The general takeaway, I think, is that none of the Ultimas that experimented with real-time combat really won accolades from Ultima fans for their combat systems, even if the games were otherwise beloved for numerous reasons. (Okay, I really like Ultima 9’s combat…but he may be an oddball in that regard.) In general, it would seem that the turn-based systems of the earlier Ultima games were more preferred by the fandom. That said, for those of you who have enjoyed the Diablo games (or offshoots thereof, such as Torchlight), Ultima 8 is a significant; its very “clicky” combat mechanics and more action-oriented approach was a major inspiration for Blizzard’s design of Diablo; the Outland region in World of Warcraft also draws a lot of inspiration from Ultima 8 (that, or they both stem from a common piece of source material).

But here’s the real question we should ask: in what ways, or to what degree, did the turn-based combat of the earlier Ultimas contribute to their success, and to the success of the series overall?

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